POW’s/Vietnam

This guy named John Rambo, lived down the street from me when I was a kid.

It was Locked Up Abroad on National Geographic. The true hero’s. Wow

not a POW, but when i joined the marines in 93, there were a few Vietnam vets still hanging around. quick story, don't frick with them.

I just looked this up, and there were only 36 men who escaped POW camps during the Vietnam war.
It would be really rare if anybody on this board knew an escaped POW, but I would love to hear any stories that they have.

One of my grandfather's best friends was a guest of the reich for 2 years. he didn't escape but was rescued. Pretty harrowing story of when his bomber got shotdown and what happened to the first crewmember that tried to fight their captors.

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I just looked this up, and there were only 36 men who escaped POW camps during the Vietnam war.
It would be really rare if anybody on this board knew an escaped POW, but I would love to hear any stories that they have.

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There were many more that were repatriated after the war. Depends on the definition of escape we are talking.

I was fortunate enough to take a WW2 and a Vietnam war class at my high school in Georgia. Both classes were customized curriculums that each teacher needed permission from the state to teach and they weren’t found anywhere else in Georgia. I spoke with a POW from both wars in each class. The WW2 veteran was a ball gunner in a B-17. He told us that he was in the ball for about 10 minutes firing at various planes that were attacking him when he blacked out. When he woke up he was falling through the sky but he had his parachute on his back as he always did crawling into that death trap. He proceeded to land in southern Germany with a broken leg and was picked up by the SS and transferred to a POW camp where he spent the remaining 2 years of the war. He was treated pretty well although he did go hungry towards the end of the war. He went back to Germany and met one of his captors in the 80s and they shared a meal at his home.

The Vietnam veteran who was a POW was shot down outside of Hanoi from his F-4. He went to the Hanoi Hilton like so many others and was held there for 5 years if my memory is correct. He talked about how the prisoners communicated with each other by tapping their cell walls in a manner that mimicked the alphabet so they could figure out what each other were saying. He knew John McCain well and like McCain he couldn’t raise his arms above his shoulders due to the torture he received. His experience as very different from the WW2 I spoke with.

My father's neighbors and friend was a B-52 co-pilot that was shot down over North Vietnam. He spent 55 days in captivity and returned to active duty after recovering from his injuries. A really nice guy too.

Bill Arcuri

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German...treated pretty well

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My understanding as well.
Not to minimize it, but I'd much rather be German pow than VC or Japanese.

I think German guys were just serving their country for most part. Most weren't necessarily bad ppl or crazy.